


you punish me with pity

by TheBizarreHairTrio



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Post-Order 66, and your ex best friend happens to be evil and ready to murder literally everyone, maybe this is a lil sad, okay who am i kidding it's absolutely sad, what the fuck do you do when you have your ex best friend in the basement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26037367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBizarreHairTrio/pseuds/TheBizarreHairTrio
Summary: Sometimes, home can be found again.(Or: the Jedi are gone, but not all of them. A small group of survivors find home, far from the reaches of the Empire.)
Relationships: Original Jedi Character(s) & Original Jedi Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	you punish me with pity

**Author's Note:**

> this is TECHNICALLY an au because i have a whole main storyline i'm setting up so let's just call this the "regret & redemption timeline"

A parvinoth flits about his head as Vylin eases his way through the forest, steady and calm with a hand on his blaster. His lightsaber would be more efficient to dispatch any unwanted presences, but in times such as these, it would be too dangerous to leave any trace of a Jedi anywhere.

Especially here on Ashas Ree, where they have hidden themselves. 

The temple here had long fallen out of use and into disrepair, but Vylin remembers all Jedi Temples ever recorded in the Archives. Perhaps it's too exposed, too public when a trading outpost is situated right beside it, but they'd situated themselves here for two years already with no hint of discovery. It's safe, for now.

He steps into the temple, down a narrow passage and deeper into the structure, fingertips tracing the stone as he slips his eyes shut, lets the presence of the temple wash over him and sooth his momentary worries. As he comes upon an illuminated room, he smiles, enters.

“Feri,” he greets softly, turning his smile onto the Zygerrian, who returns his smile. “Zagan,” he acknowledges, turning next to the Iridonian Zabrak child, who looks up from his in progress painting to smile and wave at him. His smile turns rueful. “Has she given you any issue?” he asks solemnly.

Zagan averts his eyes, purposefully turning back to his painting, and Feri sighs, shakes their head. “She hasn't done anything, Vylin,” they reply soberly. “She ate without saying a word.”

He reaches out, sets his hand on their shoulder, and exhales deeply. “That's a relief,” he murmurs, extending his other hand to touch Zagan’s horns gently, before withdrawing both and stepping around them. “I’ll check up on her.”

“Be safe, Vylin,” Feri calls after him, and the Mirialan acknowledges them with a wave of his hand, headed for the trapdoor leading to a staircase, descending on silent feet.

It's a risk, keeping her here, especially when the temple here was built to seal a Sith Temple below. But there's nowhere else to place her, nowhere else that doesn't risk the safety of Feri and Zagan. The Zabrak child had already suffered in her care; he can't risk him again.

Halting in front of the door, Vylin taps in the code. Commander Forge’s CC number, then Captain Snap’s CT. Maybe it's too simple, too easy to figure out—but she wouldn't remember the numbers of the clones, the  _ friends  _ she willingly killed, wouldn't even think Vylin would use them as a code. Not when his own— 

He squashes down that train of thought, door sliding open, and Vylin steps into the room, facing Nadirr squarely, the white energy field between them. 

Nadirr looks away first, arms locked in place by stun cuffs, settled on the floor of the force cage, large enough for her to stretch out on her back in. 

“Which side of you am I speaking to?” he asks quietly, arms folded over his chest.

There's a soft scoff from the Elomin. “I'm  _ behaving,”  _ she says scathingly. “Not making trouble for your precious little younglings. Isn't that what you wanted?”

There's a lot of things Vylin wants. He wants the jedi back, everyone alive and whole; he wants Scherazid back, his master smiling at him and saying he's done well; he wants his best friend back, Nadirr to look at him with eyes pure white and lacking the yellow veins of the Dark Side; he wants  _ Kama—  _ “Thank you for your cooperation,” he says roughly, interrupting his thoughts before they can go too far. “It's a difficult situation for all of us.”

She laughs, the edge to it mean and desperate. “Why don't you just kill me now?” she rasps, head finally snapping up and locking eyes with him, accusing. He carefully suppresses the reflexive flinch at the yellowing corruption of her eyes. “I’m a kriffing hassle for you; and your precious Order is gone, you don't need to follow the Code—”

“I will not kill you, Nadirr,” he replies, false surety in his tone. He looks away as tears prickle at his eyes. “It is not the Jedi way.”

“The Jedi are  _ dead,”  _ she hisses, cruel and aiming for the raw, exposed pieces of him she'd always been able to see. He can't help but flinch this time. “Why uphold extinct principles?”

“All the more reason to endure,” he says sharply, fingers clenching in the cloth over his biceps. “I am a Jedi, no matter the state of the Order. That will never change, and I will not compromise my beliefs for anything!”

Nadirr gets her legs under her, standing stiff with a snarl contorting her features. “You leave an enemy alive in your home because of your  _ sentiment!”  _ she snaps, leaning up towards the field and taking care not to touch it. “You leave  _ me  _ alive to  _ suffer  _ in your basement until I rot away!”

“I will not kill an unarmed prisoner!” he snaps back, whirling on her with his lips pressed into a hard line. 

“Then give me my lightsaber, and you can kill me then,” she challenges, sharp teeth on display. 

He laughs, only bitterness in his voice, and shakes his head. “I’m not giving you your lightsaber, Nadirr,” he says, quiet and tired. He stares at her, solemn and regretful, and she looks away. “I can't trust you. Not after what you've done, not after Zagan—”

A growl rumbles in her throat at the name of the Zabrak. “That's  _ my  _ apprentice—” she says hotly.

“You don't have an apprentice, Nadirr!” he snaps, cutting her off. “Zagan is a  _ child,  _ and you hurt him!” He exhales deeply, letting the tension melt away into the Force before he says something he regrets. “I can't trust you,” he says helplessly. “I won't risk the safety of anyone in this temple. Not for you.”

She steps closer to the field, desperation leaking into her voice. “Vylin,” she whispers urgently. “Vylin, you can't just leave me here forever. You wouldn't do that to me, right?”

“It's not forever, Nadirr,” he says, hand hovering inches away from the energy field. “There's good in you, Nadirr. It's only a matter of realizing you can still change. It's never too late to come back.”

She grits her teeth, scowling darkly, and looks away. “There is no place for goodness in this kind of galaxy,” she mutters, stepping away and settling down on the floor of the cage, back to him in a blatant sign of disinterest in continued conversation. 

Vylin sighs, dropping his hand to his side. “All the more reason to be a good person, in the face of all this bad,” he says softly, turning away to leave her to her prison, reengaging the security measures on the door as he steps back into the hallway. He takes the stairs two at a time, slipping out from the trapdoor and heading for his room, acknowledging Feri and Zagan with a quick nod before the door shuts behind him. He sinks to the ground, presses his forehead to the wall, and draws in a rasping inhale, long and shuddering. 

“Master,” he whispers, pleadingly. “What am I going to do?”


End file.
